Making the Neck (Part II)
By John Fisher
Nature gave men two ends--one to sit on & one to think with. Man's success or failure is dependent on the one he uses most.
When I sanded the fret boards contour I used a flat square piece of wood with #80 grit sandpaper glued to it.
Here I am going back and forth on the sanding block and rotating is slightly to give it it's curve.
Compound Radius
I will not go into full details about compound radiuses at this time as I have already explained it in my article "How the Build a Les Paul Guitar the Hard Way". But just to let you know, I made this neck with a slight compound radius. At the nut I have a radius of 7-1/4" and towards the body the radius is about 9". I have no real way of explaining how to do this but as you see from above, I just worked on it using the sanding block in the picture. I did have 2 radius gauges, one 7-1/2" and one 9" to help guide me in this. I also used a long straight edge to check the flatness of the neck.
Here I am slightly rocking the neck back and forth as I am sanding it to give a smaller radius on the nut end.
Here the fret board is almost there.
Success is not measured by the heights one attains, but by the obstacles that were overcome in their attainment.